The world of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is brimming with mysteries and puzzles that will test your wit and eye for detail.
One is the Father and Son puzzle, a clever brain teaser hidden in Vatican City. This article explains how to solve it.
How To Solve the Father and Son Puzzle
The puzzle won't be accessible until you complete the side quest A Nun in Trouble. The mission kicks off when Gina asks for your help.
click to enlarge
+ 3You'll join her as she travels to several locations, including the Sistine Chapel, the Museum Wing, and the Borgia Tower.
A run-in with a Blackshirts thug happens at the top of the tower. The encounter ends with Giuliana (Gina’s contact) getting rescued.
As a reward for your efforts, you’ll receive Giuliana’s Key, essential for the next part of the puzzle.
Once you have Giuliana’s Key, head down one floor from the tower’s top.
You'll spot a locked door near where you swung across a gap with your bullwhip.
You can open the door and enter a secret room on the balcony with the key. This room has a safe and other intriguing features.
Among them are a dog and a cat, charming but unrelated to solving the puzzle.
In this room, your main focus should be searching for clues to help crack the safe’s code.
click to enlarge + 3Two key papers are in the room's desk drawers. The first is an Italian poem with certain letters highlighted.
These letters are the building blocks for your code.
click to enlarge + 3The second document is a Polybius Square diagram, a cipher tool that works with a grid of numbers and letters.
These clues work together to open the safe.
Even though the game’s journal suggests otherwise, these two documents are all needed to solve the puzzle.
To crack the puzzle, find the circled letters in the Italian poem and match them with their numbers on the Polybius Square.
Every letter combo shows where it is on the grid and the number that goes with it.
Here’s how the pairs translate:
- I + R: This pair adds up to
5. - I + A: This one makes
8. - T + A: Together, they give
7. - S + O: This combo equals
3.
It’s worth noting that the last letter in the poem may appear to be an “A” because of the cursive, but it’s an "O."
You could easily trip up on this if you're not paying attention. Enter the full code 5873 into the safe to unlock it once you have it.
Inside, a few things give more details about the story.
These include surveillance photos of Indy meeting Father Antonio and notes about the Holy Grail and other archaeological discoveries.
Cracking the safe also bags you 100 Adventure Points.
What other puzzles in the game stood out to you as memorable?
For more articles like this, take a look at our Guides and Indiana Jones page.